The Girl with the Blue Hair
by NexusOscura
Summary: The day went fine for Riley Andersen, all was right, until, in the dark of the night, just as she fell asleep, she died. Now, as time goes by, she must find a way to see the world again through the eyes of another. Welcome to Angela Richards.
1. Prologue – Hello Death

Things had been going well for Riley Andersen one twenty-second of January; her teammates threw her a surprise party, her parents gave her some new skates and her friends, both from San Francisco and from Minnesota, joined in on celebrating her thirteenth birthday. Everything was perfect; life seemed wonderful as she and her parents said their goodnights. That's when she felt lightheaded.

Moments before then, her emotions were celebrating the happiest day of their host's teenaged life when, suddenly, their words became more slurred than a drunkard's speech. Joy danced around dizzily, enjoying the feeling in a carefree manner. She didn't feel her body fading away, particle by particle, nor did anyone else who faded at the same rate. Fear was, as usual worrying about what they were feeling; by all accounts, Riley, in her laying position, shouldn't be as dizzy as she was. His near incoherent ramblings of the possible dangers became slowed and slurred as he slowly vanished.

Across from the console, Sadness was having trouble reading a Mind Manual she had randomly picked from the shelves, having decided to read the rest of the day away, as there was no need for her to be at the console those last few minutes. Growing tired of trying to focus her blurry vision, she looked at her companions and became aware of their fading forms. She became as panicked as Fear the instant she noticed that she, herself, was fading away as well and knew quickly why. As fast as she could, she ran past the annoyed Anger, who grumbled about the nausea and sort-of drunkenness, and the lightheadedly overjoyed Disgust, who seemed as though she fell in love with the most dreamy of boys and had lost enough of herself to actually float on the feeling, and shook Fear out of his frightened madness, only to point him in the direction of a new fright.

"Fear," she screamed, holding her hand to his face, "look!"

And Fear did, noticing the see-through-ness of Sadness' form before wearily and fearfully looking at the other's fading forms, finishing with his own. In a mild panic that was soon washed away by lethargy, he tried to warn Riley on the danger the dizziness brought, barely managing to press a button before his host fell asleep and slowly died in her dreams. Fear and Sadness both looked at each other, then at the others before walking up to the window across Headquarters to confirm their fears.

One by one, the facets of Riley's Mind shut down, grew dim and disappeared without a trace in a wonderful and scary reversal of how they originally manifested. Everything turned to dust and lifted up into the black sky over the course of an hour, an hour Fear and Sadness spent watching, the both of them crying until Fear vanished right after Disgust. In his absence, Sadness redoubled her crying and walked up to Joy, who lay on the coal black ground of the place she called home, depleted of energy and her element. As realization finally reached her pale yellow face, the star-shaped Emotion let out a loud, proud laugh as she saw her first friend in Headquarters approach her.

"At least we gave it our all, right?" she asked her glum companion, who just sat beside her, sniffling her tears into some semblance of control. Joy gave Sadness a small pat on the back, a tear sliding down her fading particles as she felt the blue teardrop-like Emotion disappear. Within moments even Joy had run dry of energy as she slipped into Death's embrace alongside her host, not knowing that Death would leave them behind, lost within someone else's Mind.


	2. Dropped off in Someone's Brain

Angela Richards woke with a shock, her young, three year old mind startled into alertness at the sound of clattering emitting from beneath her bed. She looked around in her dark, pink colored room decorated with all things pink, a color she began to despise even if she didn't know what despising was, and found no trace of any intruder, human or otherwise. But she knew the absence to be false; there definitely was something with her in the dark of the night.

On and on, she kept looking, searching for someone in the darkness. Fun or scary, she didn't care; she knew that monsters won't come to scare her on purpose, so she felt they were mostly fun. She was quite carefree, as energetic as a child woken at three in the morning could be, and she kept on looking, to no avail in the darkness.

Soon, she gave up, opting to return to sleep. That was her first mistake. The moment her eyes closed, a pair of blue furred hands went for her midsection and began to tickle her senseless, loud giggles filling the room for a few seconds before the hands' owner joined in on the laughter. Sully and Angie laughed wholeheartedly, the both of them surprised that Mr. and Mrs. Richards hadn't woken up by then. They laughed and laughed until their sides hurt before the large, horned monster turned for the closet door.

"Ah, see ya next month, kiddo." The blue beast said as he left for his realm, each step as light as his frame could allow. As soon as he was gone, the amber eyed, raven haired child fell back onto her pillow and tried to return to sleep. There was only one thing stopping her.

Sitting back up, the young child looked around once more, feeling a presence right beside her. It was only there for a moment, but that moment was enough to put her back on alert. She looked around for several minutes, a look of light fear on her face, before sleep called to her once more and she lay back on her pillow for the fourth time that night.

Within her mind, Angela's Fear finally let go of the console, her influence barely contained by Joy and Sadness. They all looked at each other for a moment before the blue and purple Emotions followed the red and green ones up to their living quarters.

"G'night, everyone!" Joy exclaimed, an absolutely huge smile on his bright yellow face as the others replied with their tired goodnights. As he waited for a dream to show up, the star-like Emotion went to grab a Mind Manual to pass the time, one titled Personality Island Maintenance Vol. 17. In it, he found wonderful information about the Islands of Personality, of which two existed right outside Headquarters.

The first Island, slightly off-center to the left, contained a large assortment of all things fun and not pink, powered by a happy memory of Angie enjoying a particularly fun game of peek-a-boo with her father. It was obvious that Fun Island was its name, and whenever it was powered up, the Island right beside it, filled with silly contraptions and a wooden silhouette of Sully in the background, powered now by the memory of the girl's third birthday a few hours earlier instead of its original memory of Sully's first appearance, activated as well. Goofball was its name, and it certainly looked like it deserved it. Best part? It wasn't pink!

Thinking on that aspect, Joy couldn't help but laugh at the fact that he absolutely hated something when he liked just about everything else. Pink. Pink! PINK! As much as he liked mom and dad, the yellow Emotion had to agree with Disgust in letting Anger "sic 'em" should they get Angie another pink object.

Returning to his chair at the console, Joy opened the Manual as a dream began to play. Strangely, the dream was of the blonde girl two houses up the street, whose name escaped Joy every time Angie saw her. She lay on a metal bed, like the ones Angela saw at the hospital when dad had broken his leg several months ago, and looked pale, almost sickly. Despite that, she had a smile on her face that made Joy know that she was alright.

Before he turned his focus on the Manual in his hands, the yellow Emotion saw the blonde's hair creepily turn a dark blue and her eyes turn to sapphires, just like his. Her shoulder length hair grew slowly, ending up long enough to reach past her hips by just a bit as her skin turned white, then golden, then back to its original pale color. Scared almost as much as Fear was just moments before, Joy called out for his companions and slammed the Wake-Up button just before a spindly figure tackled him off the console and told Angela to run to her parent's room, the sickening laughter of the nightmare echoing all over the Mind World.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Long-Term Memory, a storm of particles manifested, scaring the wits out of two Mind Workers organizing the day's memories. They stared at it for a few moments, confused at the fact that what they though was an Emotion was manifesting so far out of Headquarters. At the very least, they agreed that the display was mesmerizing, even as it only lasted for a moment, a dark blue haired girl in a rainbow sweater, black jeans and red sneakers walking out of the cloud as it ended.

As she calmly stepped out, the Mind World shook violently, save for Headquarters, which stood unaffected over the Dump. Every step she took caused the quakes to intensify, as if she were the Destroyer and the World knew of her unstoppable presence. Memories upon memories rained down around her as she finished her ten step walk toward the two Workers near her. As soon as she stopped, so did the quakes and the Mind World was calm once more.

Riley looked at the two bean-like beings in front of her, each one shorter than her thighs and trembling in primal fear. Somehow, she instantly knew what they were, as if fragments form her mind buried deep within her current existence pushed the knowledge to her consciousness. She knew that they were part of the world around her and she knew that she also was a part of it, but the knowledge left confusion within her. How could she be a part of someone's mind when she was, just moments ago, about to sleep on her own bed, in a room across the hall from her parent's room in San Francisco?

For that matter, she inspected the memories on the ground, each one of them depicting a child no older than two or three and already heavily faded in color and clarity. A sort of sad worry latched itself onto her form as she examined each memory without paying the blueish purple figures beside her any attention. The worry quickly lost its sadness and obtained much more fear as a realization occurred to her.

Standing up, Riley saw the tall, pearl-white structure that the until-then unknown knowledge allowed her to know as Headquarters. She looked at its incredible height, stared in awe at its unbelievable location and marbled at the wild activity happening by the window facing her particle-made form. The teen's eyes were wide and displayed their original sky color for a second before the sounds of whistle, like those used by gym teachers, pierced through her eardrums.

Upon looking at the source of the noise, the teen saw a sight to behold. Several Mind Workers in police uniforms charged their way toward her, some of them pulling a metal cage. Confusion turned to fear as she realized just who the cage was meant for, her body automatically turning to run toward the nearest floating Island. Within moments of trailing the Cliffside of the Memory Dump, the running teen found herself at an Island filled with strange machinery and goofy contraptions; the perfect place to hide, in her mind.

Using her relatively long legs to gain more ground, Riley crossed the bridge onto the Island and ducked into a narrow alley, taking random turns, but ensuring that she didn't arrive at an edge. Once she was sure she was far enough from the Mind Police, she grabbed onto an overhanging pipe and climbed her way to the second tallest structure on the entire Island, a cartoonish cat with its paw playfully over a ball of yarn, where she hid until it got dark and then hid some more until she was sure that they'd quit chasing her.

After ensuring that she was well hidden, the particle-made teen decided to get some sleep, hoping beyond hope that what had just happened was just a bad dream. Even then, deep down she knew that she was wide awake, or, at least, as awake as she could be. The knowledge within her told her that wherever she was, it was someone else's Mind, but it also told her that the fact that she was there was impossible. Looking at the reflective metal of the cat behind her, Riley saw that her hair had turned blue, the shade of which she couldn't tell in the darkness.

Looking at the starless sky, Riley asked the one question that screamed to be asked before drifting to sleep:

"How could this happen?"


	3. The Funeral

It had been a week since Riley Andersen had mysteriously died, the coroner and medical examiner both vexed by the anomalous way she left the living. By all accounts, she was as healthy as a thirteen year old could be, especially given her knack for hockey. Yet there she was, in a coffin, surrounded by friends and family who could afford to cancel their flights back home to mourn her strange death, her face calm and with as large a smile as when death took her.

Among those mourning her were two girls crying rivers onto each other, the shorter, slightly older one being Riley's best Minnesotan friend, Megan "Meg" Davis, and the taller, slightly younger one being her best San Franciscan friend, Patricia "Trish" Richards. Both were Riley's teammates in life, both knew her well and both were heavily affected by the loss of their friend.

A ways away from the crying pair stood Angela, Trish's younger sister, looking at the coffin above her with sadly curious eyes. A week ago, while she was playing with her sister, she heard the sounds of sirens approaching, then stopping two houses up. A sort of morbid curiosity wrapped itself around the child, causing her to ask her sister to accompany her up-street.

Soon after, they were out and in front of the blue house, where Angela and Trish saw two men carrying a gurney out of the house, a blanket covering the dead figure on it. It only took Trish a few seconds to figure out who it was beneath the cloth, the depressed looks on the Andersens' faces being all she needed as confirmation.

Angela, however, was confused at the sudden sorrow of her older sister. To her, the figure on the gurney was just sleeping, although the child asked herself why they were taking it to the hospital. Nevertheless, she approached her wallowing sibling, not to ask of the figure, but because she felt the urge to comfort her, even if her young mind did not know what comfort was.

Now, before the figure in the coffin, Angela knew why her sister cried that day. Through nightly visits to her parent's and sister's rooms, the raven haired child noticed that when someone was sleeping, their chests rose and lowered. She figured that, since the girl in the coffin, Riley Andersen, as she had come to know her, didn't raise or lowered her chest, she wasn't sleeping. Nor was she holding her breath, as the child had long since figured that doing so for so long would be bad, having tried it herself once.

Crossing the only two choices she could comprehend from her small list of things the blonde could be doing, Angela wondered if she was what the adults meant by dead. A sudden sadness took hold of her, yet no tear fell from her eyes. Rather, she thought internally about things happening around her.

What was death? That question echoed within the raven haired child about as much as the sounds of crying and comforting words around the room. Within her, even her Emotions debated the concept greatly, none of them even near the console as their host stared at the dead girl's face. They each paced around, each one adding to or debunking other's guesses and theories. None of them noticed the eavesdropper listening in from outside.

"I'm telling you," Joy said as he hopped over the projector's tractor beam, "she's definitely not sleeping, Anger."

"Then, what is she? Huh? What the heck is she?" The red Emotion asked, almost as much of a nervous wreck as Fear beside her. "Is she really as they say she is? Is Riley dead? Is that why our sis is crying her eyes out with that redhead behind us?" At her words, Sadness turned the crank at the left side of the console, telling Angela to look at the two weeping figures in worry.

"There's no other explanation," the tear-like Emotion said, his own eyes about to burst.

"Are you all so sure she's not just holding her breath?"

"We scratched that possibility when Fear asked that question, remember?" Disgust explained from the Idea Shelves, Joy standing behind her with a curious look on his face. While most Ideas on the Shelves were childish and scarce, there was one that made Joy's eyes light up. Grabbing the blue Idea over Disgust's head, the glowing Emotion dashed over and picked up his blue companion and rushed the both of them over to the console.

"Oh, great," Anger exclaimed in an annoyed tone, "he has an Idea."

"Oh, will you hush now?" Joy replied before turning to Sadness. "Hey buddy, think you can do what you always do when we see someone in need?" Sadness looked at him with confusion for a moment, then realized what he meant and took hold of the Idea, placing it in the slot by the crank.

"Okay," the blue ball of tears began as his host accepted the Idea, "how do you want me to do it?" He turned to face Joy as the yellow star simply scratch his chin, a thoughtful look in his eye as he formulated a plan of action. Absentmindedly, the yellow Emotion pressed a few buttons, causing the raven haired child to put a hand to her chest and feel her softly beating heart. The light rhythm and calming nature of the feeling caused a plan to finally reach Joy.

"Alright, here's how we're doing this," he began explaining, the other Emotions coming closer as he spoke, "let's approach them, get their attention and, as best as we can, tell them that Riley isn't really gone."

"What?" the others exclaimed, Anger doing so much louder than everyone else.

"No, no, guys, guys, hear me out. We'll do it this way; we point here," Joy placed a hand on Sadness' chest, of-center to the left, "and say that she's there."

"And how are you so sure that'll help them?" Disgust asked, not really knowing what Joy was getting to. The tall, star-like Emotion simply looked at each of their faces for a second before turning to the console.

"Sadness knows. Right, buddy?"

Hesitantly, the blue Emotion nodded before getting to work, his host fully turning toward the nearest crying figure. Outside of Headquarters, unbeknown to the Emotions, Riley listened in to every word said, finding herself surprised at the maturity in the Emotions' words, especially Joy's, whose plan Riley found to be well thought out.

Earlier in the week, the blue haired spirit of the dead blonde found out that, if she put her mind to it, the physics of the world around her would stop applying to her. So long as she stayed in control of her own emotions, she could will herself into the air and fly to and fro between Goofball Island and Headquarters. The control part had a bit of a problem though; for some reason, Riley found herself easily brought to a state of glee and excitement much more than ever before.

During states of incredible joy, the teen found herself turning as yellow as Joy, her attire turning green and blue and her shoes vanishing temporarily. By contrast, whenever she focused on defying physics, her body and clothes all turned whiter than the whitest surface, her hair and eyes somehow retaining their deep blue colors. In both cases, she always had a blue glow, just like Joy; even in her default state it was there.

Currently, the young teen gripped the outer edge of Headquarters' clear aperture, making sure she was unseen. Something in the back of her mind told her it was dangerous to go in while the Emotions were there, and thus, she stayed were she was, listening in to the blue and yellow pair as they worked together in what could be the most mature plan a three year old could formulate.

Within Headquarters, Joy and Sadness pressed many buttons in perfect synch, their host slowly approaching her sister with a sympathetic look on her face. As Angela walked up to the crying pair and called out the name of her sibling, Sadness turned to Joy to ask which words would be best to say first.

"I really don't know what to what to start with," he said, his blue hands actually trembling with worry. "Do you think, maybe…? Oh, I don't know if we can…"

"'Don't cry,'"

"What?" the blue Emotion looked at Joy, confused and wondering the meaning behind the words before he saw the logic behind them. "You mean we should say 'Don't cry, Riley's here'?"

"Yeah," Joy nodded, head tilted in Sadness's direction. "Is that fine with you?"

The blue teardrop looked at the buttons on the console, his hands wrapped around the sleeves of his sweater. Sadness analyzed the words carefully, making sure that each one was right for the moment before grabbing the lever before him and pushing it slightly, Joy pulling the other one to add a small smile to Angie's features.

Outside, Angie looked into Patricia's dark brown eyes, her own beaming with compassion and empathy. She breathed in softly, her focus solely on the tears of her older sister, and exhaled all worry away before she spoke.

"Don't cry, Riley here," Angie whispered while placing her hand to Patricia's chest. The older girl had trouble comprehending her younger sibling's words the first time, so the amber eyed child repeated herself, just a bit louder. "Don't cry, Riley here." Within Patricia's mind, the meaning echoed briefly before fading to nothing. Seeing this, Angela repeated herself a third time, locking her sister in a warming embrace. "Don't cry, Riley here."

Now, the meaning fully reached the dark eyed teen, who looked at the raven black hair of her sister's small head in light wonder at her comforting choice of words. Letting out the last of her cries, Patricia returned her sibling's embrace, her heart lighter by many degrees, lifted even more when Megan joined in, also relieved by the child's words.

Within Angie's Mind, Riley watched as Joy and Sadness held each other in their own embrace, the both of them calmly watching the scene they'd just made unfold. With compliments and congratulations coming from the other Emotions, the blue haired spirit could practically feel the smiles on their faces as she quietly observed from the window.

All celebrations were cut short as a loud chime resounded across Headquarters, the light within dimming to near darkness as a bright blue and yellow orb came from where Memories came. A Core Memory, a complex one, a powerful one; it rolled up for a second before halting by a valve on the wall, a small trapdoor opening itself to allow it passage to the Module. While every other Emotion looked at the dual toned Memory with fascination, Joy looked at it with confusion, having read in passing from the Manuals that such Memories usually formed much later in a host's life.

"It can't be," he whispered to the air, his words missed by all but Sadness, who watched as Joy went to the Module, lifted it up and picked the Memory before it could arrive at a slot. Approaching his taller companion, the tear-like Emotion wondered why Joy's demeanor went from exited and exuberant to quiet and almost incredulous.

"What's wrong, Joy?" Sadness asked as the yellow star placed the Memory back in its slot. Joy simply shook his blue haired head as he walked around the Module to see what kind of Island the new Core Memory would make.

"Nothing, really," he replied as he made it halfway there, causing the hiding spirit to duck below view, "just that, well, complex Memories like that aren't really supposed to form this early. Memories formed now are supposed to be simple, arbitrary, made by the strongest Emotional Input at the moment, like the Manuals say."

"But you've said it before," Disgust said as the Island formed, its light pushing the other two apart, "the Manuals are just guidelines, not stone-set rules."

"I know. Still, it's surprising. I mean," Joy turned to his companions as the light dissipated to reveal a prominent statue of two ambiguous figures in a warming embrace, with many objects, both happy and sad, surrounding them, "how often does something like this happen?" The question left the other Emotions vexed for a moment before Joy decided to continue, walking back to the console as he did.

"I'm happy about this new Core Memory and I'm happy about Sympathy Island, but, still, this is so wonderfully confusing and mysterious, I'm shocked, in a good way."

"Then, how about we continue making this sad day a little bit brighter?" Sadness said as he and the others arrived at the console to continue the day.

"You wanna steal my job?"

"Nope."

"Good." Joy sighed a heavy sigh, his energies at an all-time high as he pushed several buttons, the others about to join in as he said "Let's go." Everyone gave a small cheer as they made Angela follow her sister toward their parents, who spoke small comforts to the Andersens.

As the child got near the dead blonde's family, Riley, from outside Headquarters overheard a few words that made her heart fill with a strange, happy sorrow. Deciding to return to Goofball Island, the blue haired spirit allowed a small smile to grow on her pearl white features, not noticing the blue figure watching her leave from the window as she said in a low whisper:

"I was going to be a sister."


End file.
